Family Life: Help kids grieve by being truthful about death

Where’s Grandma?

Marie Jones was 7 when her grandmother died. Years later, Marie still remembers that horrid week: Her mom and dad telling her that Grandma had “gone to sleep,” and them helping her pack her bags to spend a week with their friends. She remembers her parents crying, and her confusion. First, if Grandma was just sleeping, why was everyone crying? And why did she have to leave her parents and go live with people Marie never really liked? But she never asked those questions.

A week later, her home was still in turmoil. Her once-smiling parents looked so sad, and Grandma was nowhere to be found. And each time Marie asked, “Where’s Grandma?” she got the same answer: “She’s sleeping.”

Marie’s parents are still alive, which is why she asked HealthyLife to use a fictitious name. “My parents are wonderful people, who thought they were doing the right thing,” she says. “I was taught to hold my emotions inside, and never let the world know what I am thinking. They thought that not talking about my Grandma was the best way for me to heal. They never once asked me if I missed her. And we never, ever have talked about that week.”

“Children go through grief exactly the same way as adults,” says Eileen Leary-Kelly, Ph.D., clinical director at New Insights in Middle Grove. “The only difference is their cognitive development and how they act out their emotions.”

Stage 1: Numbness

“Informing a child about the death of a loved one is the most difficult moment of all,” says Will Hannah, a bereavement counselor for the Community Hospice, which serves seven area counties. “We are hard-wired to protect children, so it’s understandable that people have an impulse to protect the child by not sharing information, keeping them in the dark as much as possible. It is better to tell the truth in simple, appropriate language the child can understand.”

Leary-Kelly agrees. “Use the words dead, died, not euphemisms.” She adds that it is hard for children younger than 10 to grasp the forever part of death. Parents should explain to the child that the person cannot come back, that his body died, but we can think about him.

In addition, Hannah says it’s dangerous not to tell a child the truth. “The child will feel lonely, confused about what is going on, and insecure.”

He says it is fine to bring a child of any age to a funeral or memorial service, as long as the child is comfortable attending. “We hear from adults who lost a loved one in childhood that they resented being excluded from a funeral. And many carry that resentment into adulthood.”

Says Leary-Kelly: “Children need to say good bye. But you have to prepare children. Tell them what they are going to see and what is going to happen. The child can draw a picture, and put it in the casket, if that is appropriate to the family’s belief system. Even a 4-year-old child knows that a dead body looks different from a live body. But tell them that beforehand. If it is a full-blown wake, have them visit an hour before the wake begins, and have someone bring them home. They’ve been included, not excluded.”

Hannah once worked with an 8-year-old boy, whose grandfather took sick and became the boy’s roommate. His grandfather died while he was at school, and when the boy returned home, his grandfather was gone, his room was back to normal, and not a word was said about the grandfather. “He knew the unspoken message was that we are not going to discuss this, and they never did,” Hannah says. “Another missed opportunity to talk about the grandfather.”

Leary-Kelly says the library is a wonderful resource for children’s books about death. Some star animals, others humans, but all have the same message: Life has a beginning and an end, and we have to celebrate the wonderful gifts the person left behind.

After all the relatives and friends have gone, the family moves on to stage two, what both Hannah and Leary-Kelly describe as a long, slow-moving process. People think that after a week, people should be back to business as usual. This stage is marked by a plethora of emotions: anger, sadness, anxiety, restlessness, eating problems, sleep disturbance, nightmares and depression. Many children, especially the very young, start acting out and regressing.

Parents should encourage children to play, acting out their feelings through stuffed animals, puppets or dolls. Therapeutic board games, simple drawing, music therapy and guided imagery also can prove helpful.

“There are no hard or fast rules about how a child will grieve. Some act out. Others withdraw, talk less, and become disinterested in things they used to love. Some cry buckets of tears. Some never shed a tear,” Leary-Kelly says. Even young children have been known to punch holes in walls. Instead, she suggests parents give the child a punching bag, or for older children, a piece of wood, long nails and a hammer, and let them pound the nails into the wood until they get all the anger out.

“The most important thing for parents to do during this stage is to recognize the signs of trouble in their child, and if they don’t improve, seek counseling,” she adds. “Parents need to shop counselors, and be sure they find one that specializes in grief.”

Stage 3: Reorganization and Ending

Little by little, children begin to realize they are not thinking daily about the person who died, and they begin to become excited by life.

“This is the time for parents to start encouraging children to have friends come to the house to play, to go to a birthday party, to invite a little friend to go on a trip,” Leary-Kelly says. “Encourage them to plug back in to life.”

This is also the time children might feel guilty about not thinking of their loved one. “Many kids think they are bad, that they should miss their dads every day. Tell them that guilt serves no purpose, and give them permission to let go of their grief. Their relationship with that person is now based on memory.”

Watch for warning signs:
If your child is experiencing any of the following signs following the death of a loved one, it’s best to seek professional help from a grief specialist:

An extended period of depression in which the child loses interest in daily activities and events

Inability to sleep, loss of appetite, prolonged fear of being alone

Acting much younger for an extended period

Excessively imitating the dead person

Repeated statements of wanting to join the dead person

Withdrawal from friends

Sharp drop in school performance or refusal to attend school

— The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry

Death of a peer
“Peers are tricky,” says Eileen Leary-Kelly, Ph.D., clinical director at New Insights in Middle Grove. “They are grieving for their friend, but dealing with their own mortality. Reassure your child that most children do not die, but grow up to become adults.” And in this case, Leary-Kelly says attending a funeral might not be appropriate, since the adults will be grieving differently and the experience could prove too emotional for a young child.